Do life crises happen to everyone? Here I am, almost thirty. Ten years ago, I certainly thought I'd be married by now, and I'm not. Nowhere close, am I? For me now, this seems right, not being close. As much as I couldn't imagine not being married by thirty then, thinking of being married by thirty when it's only a few short year away seems extreme, and much too adult for a girl like me. But. There is always a but. As one best friend has his second child and another grills me about when I'm coming home so I can help plan her wedding, I can't help but wonder if I am, brutally, behind this curve. Would we feel the same envies and jealousies and insecurities if we had nothing to compare ourselves and our own lives to? Because I honestly think that if I were stranded without communication, if I had no idea what any of my more commitment-friendly amigos were doing with their lives, I would not question my inability to settle down. I would take it as who I am and assume that things would change if they would change and there would be no worry about it. It would just be.
Why do we get so wrapped up in comparisons? There is no introspection in it, really. In looking at other people. It helps nothing. We are the product of our lives and our lives are the product of us. Sort of a mobius strip of fate and free will. To look at my married friend, happy with his wife and children and 9-5, and wonder why I don't already have the same thing would be like wondering why an Amazonian doesn't live in an igloo when it seems to work just fine for the Eskimos. Useless.
So you can't wonder. It will drive you crazy and it doesn't even change anything.
I keep looking at my past and thinking about the different outcomes I could have had. Such dangerous territory, isn't it? I can think of two boys that I probably would have been married to by now had I wanted that. Maybe three. Boys that were ready when I wasn't. But that was before most of my friends and my friends' younger siblings were getting married. And now...
I meant it when I said that all of this is useless.
I'm not writing well. I'm not thinking well. This one is over for now.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
True Love= Boredom,,,?
Something a little new on my mind. I don't write about love all that often. Really, I am alternately totally uncomfortable with and then totally thrilled with love. As a chronic commitment-phobe (places to live, people to be with, favorite ice cream flavors..I have a hard time committing to anything), the idea of true love makes me squirm more than a bit. Because that's it, right? Once you have found the one, there is no need to keep searching. This is what most people hope for. It's what I fear. Among all of my ridiculous idiosyncrasies and irrational nightmares, my fear of boredom reigns king. And somewhere in there, I began to equate true love with boredom. To me, they are the same thing.
And this is what's bugging me right now.
I essentially live inside a Billabong catalogue. The sunsets nestle nicely into postcards and beautiful, tan people are everywhere, barely dressed, surfing and sunning and falling deeply in lust. It's exciting. There are new couples whose butterflies you can almost feel yourself. They sparkle, the couples in lust. Lust makes you high.
And then I look at the people who vacation here. We are a family resort, so we get a good glance at marriage at most levels. No kids to young kids to adolescent kids to the horror that is having teenagers and then the empty nesters and, finally, the retirees. We see all of them. Now, I am well aware that comfort and boredom can be easily confused. From the outside, these couples look bored. They are out of firsts, maybe. Or she has washed too many pairs of his stinky socks and he has picked up too many boxes of tampons at the grocery store for the butterflies to live. Butterflies breathe thrill, I've heard, and flirtation. And I could be wrong, here. But I see a lot of couples sitting at dinner without much to say to each other. And I hear them have lengthy, invested conversations about what size of Gatorade they should take to the beach. Without holding hands. Without smiling. Without any hint of an emotional relationship or connection. I suppose it's a lot like being tired of living here. Like I've said before, a beautiful place to live eventually just becomes home, where you do your laundry and make coffee in the mornings. But is that really what you're supposed to be looking for? Comfort, fine. But who, as they are smile-tipsy and falling madly in love with the one person they are absolutely supposed to be with for the rest of forever, thinks that they will end up having full conversations about whether they should go to Bed Bath & Beyond on Saturday or Sunday? Honestly? What happened to the madly in love part?
Do you think that is the fate of lifelong relationships? It must be. It can't not be, really. It seems like it's just the natural progression of things, and an obvious result of eating breakfast with someone every morning for anything beyond five years. I could buy twelve women's magazines right this second and probably find an article in each one that is dedicated to keeping your marriage exciting. Getting the spark back, that sort of thing. If you have to get the spark back, it can only be assumed that it was lost at some point. Why is that so normal?
I'm beginning to think that womanizers and women labeled as heartbreakers are just addicted to this spark everybody talks about. Once you get a few tastes of it, you're hooked. Nothing else will do after that. And as soon as it's gone, so are you.
Maybe your opinion of this whole thing changes after you've found that one person. I might be blurring the lines between boredom and contentment. My hope is that the spark is dynamic; it changes colors and shapes as the relationship evolves. Sometimes it wears a mask and is hard to recognize, and that's when you think it's lost. But maybe you know how many sugars to put in his cup of coffee and he always wakes up in the morning to let the dogs out so you don't have to, and that's where it is.
Ugh, I don't know. It's a hard line to draw, isn't it? If it stays small like that for a long time, I suppose it could just burn out entirely. And though they're completely terrible, I can see how affairs happen when it's tiny and wearing a mask. Because what's so great about love if you have to look to make sure it's still there?
Clearly, I have no real idea of what I'm talking about, here. I'm attempting to predict what the end of a curvy road looks like, and I've never even been on it. Pointless. A textbook case of fear of the unknown. People say all the time that relationships are work and marriage is a full-time job. I get that. Melting two people together does not always go smoothly and compromise is constant and difficult. But the heat involved is enough to make everything worth it. And that part should be automatic, shouldn't it? Why should that require work, too?
These couples fighting about Gatorade, do they still get giddy and stupid when they kiss each other? Do they still kiss? Do they sing love songs to the radios in their cars and think about one another? Do they still have big crushes on each other? Because I think that they should. And if they don't, then I have no interest in that life.
This is not something than can be answered by anything but experience. We won't know until we know. And I'm always game for a road I have never been down, but boredom is a dead end sign and I really hope that that's not what happens every time.
And this is what's bugging me right now.
I essentially live inside a Billabong catalogue. The sunsets nestle nicely into postcards and beautiful, tan people are everywhere, barely dressed, surfing and sunning and falling deeply in lust. It's exciting. There are new couples whose butterflies you can almost feel yourself. They sparkle, the couples in lust. Lust makes you high.
And then I look at the people who vacation here. We are a family resort, so we get a good glance at marriage at most levels. No kids to young kids to adolescent kids to the horror that is having teenagers and then the empty nesters and, finally, the retirees. We see all of them. Now, I am well aware that comfort and boredom can be easily confused. From the outside, these couples look bored. They are out of firsts, maybe. Or she has washed too many pairs of his stinky socks and he has picked up too many boxes of tampons at the grocery store for the butterflies to live. Butterflies breathe thrill, I've heard, and flirtation. And I could be wrong, here. But I see a lot of couples sitting at dinner without much to say to each other. And I hear them have lengthy, invested conversations about what size of Gatorade they should take to the beach. Without holding hands. Without smiling. Without any hint of an emotional relationship or connection. I suppose it's a lot like being tired of living here. Like I've said before, a beautiful place to live eventually just becomes home, where you do your laundry and make coffee in the mornings. But is that really what you're supposed to be looking for? Comfort, fine. But who, as they are smile-tipsy and falling madly in love with the one person they are absolutely supposed to be with for the rest of forever, thinks that they will end up having full conversations about whether they should go to Bed Bath & Beyond on Saturday or Sunday? Honestly? What happened to the madly in love part?
Do you think that is the fate of lifelong relationships? It must be. It can't not be, really. It seems like it's just the natural progression of things, and an obvious result of eating breakfast with someone every morning for anything beyond five years. I could buy twelve women's magazines right this second and probably find an article in each one that is dedicated to keeping your marriage exciting. Getting the spark back, that sort of thing. If you have to get the spark back, it can only be assumed that it was lost at some point. Why is that so normal?
I'm beginning to think that womanizers and women labeled as heartbreakers are just addicted to this spark everybody talks about. Once you get a few tastes of it, you're hooked. Nothing else will do after that. And as soon as it's gone, so are you.
Maybe your opinion of this whole thing changes after you've found that one person. I might be blurring the lines between boredom and contentment. My hope is that the spark is dynamic; it changes colors and shapes as the relationship evolves. Sometimes it wears a mask and is hard to recognize, and that's when you think it's lost. But maybe you know how many sugars to put in his cup of coffee and he always wakes up in the morning to let the dogs out so you don't have to, and that's where it is.
Ugh, I don't know. It's a hard line to draw, isn't it? If it stays small like that for a long time, I suppose it could just burn out entirely. And though they're completely terrible, I can see how affairs happen when it's tiny and wearing a mask. Because what's so great about love if you have to look to make sure it's still there?
Clearly, I have no real idea of what I'm talking about, here. I'm attempting to predict what the end of a curvy road looks like, and I've never even been on it. Pointless. A textbook case of fear of the unknown. People say all the time that relationships are work and marriage is a full-time job. I get that. Melting two people together does not always go smoothly and compromise is constant and difficult. But the heat involved is enough to make everything worth it. And that part should be automatic, shouldn't it? Why should that require work, too?
These couples fighting about Gatorade, do they still get giddy and stupid when they kiss each other? Do they still kiss? Do they sing love songs to the radios in their cars and think about one another? Do they still have big crushes on each other? Because I think that they should. And if they don't, then I have no interest in that life.
This is not something than can be answered by anything but experience. We won't know until we know. And I'm always game for a road I have never been down, but boredom is a dead end sign and I really hope that that's not what happens every time.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Resort Life
My blog needs a change. The layout is totally boring. I don't even want to read the thing and I re-read everything I write about a million times (mostly marveling at how badly I create sentences and kicking my computerself in the face for the fact that I continue to write insufferable drivel). Regardless of the drivel, I wish the thing looked better. Alas, I have no idea how to do much of anything except make hummus and live in any tense other than the present one, which is not conducive to being able to find or create some kind of stellar blog layout. If anyone has a suggestion, out with it. Help. Me.
Life is exhausting right now. It's hard to explain what seasonal life really feels like to someone who has no hope of an idea. One morning, you drink your coffee and eat breakfast and go to work. This is normal. The next morning, you have to wait in line behind twenty other people for coffee. Those twenty people know that you work there, so before you have even had that essential taste of caffeine, you're answering questions about the weather and which beach is best and where can they get snorkel gear? It's entirely unfair. Once season starts, your customer service face becomes a permanent fixture. You always have to be smiling because anywhere from 100-300 people are always watching. You start to feel like a zoo creature, somehow totally fascinating to vacationers who chose the curtain with the cubicle behind it. Examined and discussed. It's really weird.
Our restaurant serves dinner at 5:30. The staff generally comes down around that time, sits at the same group of tables we have sat at for years now, and eats together. We talk about the day. We tell stories about crazy guests, of which there is never a shortage. We talk about which beach we might head to on our weekends and giggle at inside jokes and try each other's dinners. It's a family thing, really. We get there at 5:30 not because we are hungry then, or even because that's a logical time to eat. We get there at 5:30 because that is when everyone else will be there. We love dinner. We love dinner, that is, until the time of year rolls around. You know in prison movies when they show eating scenes and the guy carrying the tray is always shielding it from the other guys? That's what dinner feels like right now. I have literally had someone breathe over my plate and ask me which entree I got. Touch the arm that is blocking my plate as if to say, "Excuse me, arm. You are in the way of my viewing the food that this young lady whom I do not know has chosen for her dinner." I'm not kidding. This happens.
The beach does not belong to us anymore, either. We are afraid to go to our favorite little sunny corners because we might be followed and then those corners will be covered in beach towels (which don't even make sense here. The sand is calcite. It's little jagged grains that cling to a beach towel like we cling to summer) and we would hang our heads down and walk on, submitting ourselves to something ridiculous like porch-tanning because we can't stand the lack of personal space anywhere else.
Not that it's all bad. There is so much energy this time of year. You can't help but to feel the buzz of the whole thing, even if you don't want it. It gets all over you. Of course, we miss the slow days when no one else is on the beach and we can have Woody's happy hour all to ourselves. But you can't possibly spend a day around people who have worked 51 weeks of the year looking forward to this ONE week and not catch some of their excitement. I find that listening to their conversations makes me think, "Oh my goodness, they're right. This place IS amazing. It IS beautiful. Why do I forget that part sometimes?" Because eventually, wherever you live will just become home. No matter how exotic it may have seemed at the beginning. It becomes the place you do your laundry. Where you fumble through making coffee in the morning. Where you complain about the drivers/grocery prices/post office/bank line. So, it does us a bit of good to be tsunami-ed by the giddiness of hundreds of people who pay exorbitant airline prices and struggle through trying to find a swimsuit to buy in February just to spend a single week here. They've been dreaming of it all year long and by the time they arrive, their skin is the only thing holding them together. They're about to explode into rainbow confetti bits, so tired and so happy to finally have gotten here. How awesome.
Perspective changed. This is why I write a ridiculous, insufferable blog. You can start out a post as grumpy as anything and end feeling a little more sparkly. I'm gonna end this one here, I think, and dream of a place to go on vacation where I'll explode into rainbow confetti bits.
Life is exhausting right now. It's hard to explain what seasonal life really feels like to someone who has no hope of an idea. One morning, you drink your coffee and eat breakfast and go to work. This is normal. The next morning, you have to wait in line behind twenty other people for coffee. Those twenty people know that you work there, so before you have even had that essential taste of caffeine, you're answering questions about the weather and which beach is best and where can they get snorkel gear? It's entirely unfair. Once season starts, your customer service face becomes a permanent fixture. You always have to be smiling because anywhere from 100-300 people are always watching. You start to feel like a zoo creature, somehow totally fascinating to vacationers who chose the curtain with the cubicle behind it. Examined and discussed. It's really weird.
Our restaurant serves dinner at 5:30. The staff generally comes down around that time, sits at the same group of tables we have sat at for years now, and eats together. We talk about the day. We tell stories about crazy guests, of which there is never a shortage. We talk about which beach we might head to on our weekends and giggle at inside jokes and try each other's dinners. It's a family thing, really. We get there at 5:30 not because we are hungry then, or even because that's a logical time to eat. We get there at 5:30 because that is when everyone else will be there. We love dinner. We love dinner, that is, until the time of year rolls around. You know in prison movies when they show eating scenes and the guy carrying the tray is always shielding it from the other guys? That's what dinner feels like right now. I have literally had someone breathe over my plate and ask me which entree I got. Touch the arm that is blocking my plate as if to say, "Excuse me, arm. You are in the way of my viewing the food that this young lady whom I do not know has chosen for her dinner." I'm not kidding. This happens.
The beach does not belong to us anymore, either. We are afraid to go to our favorite little sunny corners because we might be followed and then those corners will be covered in beach towels (which don't even make sense here. The sand is calcite. It's little jagged grains that cling to a beach towel like we cling to summer) and we would hang our heads down and walk on, submitting ourselves to something ridiculous like porch-tanning because we can't stand the lack of personal space anywhere else.
Not that it's all bad. There is so much energy this time of year. You can't help but to feel the buzz of the whole thing, even if you don't want it. It gets all over you. Of course, we miss the slow days when no one else is on the beach and we can have Woody's happy hour all to ourselves. But you can't possibly spend a day around people who have worked 51 weeks of the year looking forward to this ONE week and not catch some of their excitement. I find that listening to their conversations makes me think, "Oh my goodness, they're right. This place IS amazing. It IS beautiful. Why do I forget that part sometimes?" Because eventually, wherever you live will just become home. No matter how exotic it may have seemed at the beginning. It becomes the place you do your laundry. Where you fumble through making coffee in the morning. Where you complain about the drivers/grocery prices/post office/bank line. So, it does us a bit of good to be tsunami-ed by the giddiness of hundreds of people who pay exorbitant airline prices and struggle through trying to find a swimsuit to buy in February just to spend a single week here. They've been dreaming of it all year long and by the time they arrive, their skin is the only thing holding them together. They're about to explode into rainbow confetti bits, so tired and so happy to finally have gotten here. How awesome.
Perspective changed. This is why I write a ridiculous, insufferable blog. You can start out a post as grumpy as anything and end feeling a little more sparkly. I'm gonna end this one here, I think, and dream of a place to go on vacation where I'll explode into rainbow confetti bits.
Monday, January 10, 2011
All that I know is I don't know.
Newest weirdness: Walking around a place knowing you're leaving soon. I guess the last time I really had this happen was my senior year in high school, and I wouldn't say that I was all that aware of it then. Was anyone? Did anyone walk down a hall and look around thinking, "Man, one of these walks will be the last one?" And if they did, was it with a sense of nostalgia or more of a getmeouttahere kind of feeling? Maybe it was both. Personally, I can't even tell how I feel about it. Sometimes, I'm thankful. I think that I won't miss the cold showers or the bugs that fly into my computer screen if I turn it on at night. I have been glancing around at the thorny catch and keep vines and the splintery boardwalks and the fishbowl tents that hold ghosts I haven't let go of yet and I'll catch myself thinking, "A year from now, I won't have to deal with any of this ever again." And then I think, "Damn. A year from now, I won't have to deal with any of this ever again."
The song I am listening to right now just said, "Live through this and you won't look back." Three times.
I lie to myself daily. That never works for too long, does it? Eventually the front of your brain catches up to the back of it and you're screwed. Lie revealed and demanding to be dealt with. It's like telling your mom that you don't know who finished the cookies when you have melted chocolate chip evidence all over your 5 year old face. It's a joke. The truth is, I will miss the cold showers and the boardwalks. Even the thorns, and those are certainly not limited to thorns on vines. I left once, so I know this to be fact. You miss everything. That does not mean it's not what is supposed to happen, which I have found to be a very important distinction to make. Like those ghosts you sometimes think too fondly of, things change and disappear and it's almost always sad and almost always the right thing, anyway. Even if it feels differently at the time. Even if it feels differently forever.
And now I am here with chocolate chips all over my face and I am wondering what, exactly, protocol is here. I have been through my last Maho Christmas now. And the last Maho New Year's Eve. The last beginning of season. The last January swell. It will be a season full of lasts.
The thing is, Maho has been a pretty heavy place in my life. Most people have a place at least a little like this. Maybe your first car. Or those high school halls. Or that house in your college town, which was decorated with what you thought would surely be the best 4 (5? 6?) years of your entire life. This is where I fell in love the first time. It's where I felt what was it was like to have my heart break into a thousand cracked slivers. The only bone I have ever broken can be blamed on a loose rock at Big Maho beach. I learned to run here, and to lull. Televisions exited my life and I found out that I actually hate them. Because of this little place, I can tell you what a tamarind tree looks like, what time of year the mangoes are ripe and where most of the frangipanis are. And what a frangipani is, for that matter. Very simply put, I met myself here. I threw out some of the flaws and vices, gained a few new ones and pretty much figured out how to be someone I like at least most of the time. My life is less ordinary because of Maho. I am, as a direct result, happy. And in fewer than twelve months, I will be leaving.
Leaving places happens. I read somewhere that the average person will relocate eleven times over the span of his or her life. I'm at 12. This isn't something sad. It's not depressing. It's something I am proud of and I would not want my life to have gone down any other road. I have lived here longer than I have ever lived anywhere, which could give me some insight into this wanderlust thing if I ever bothered with it. 12 and counting. I can not wait to see where I will land next and I am happy to continue not knowing where that next place will be.
Still, there is always going to be that one place, isn't there? The one you think about when you're bored or daydreaming or looking for sepia nostalgia. And the unfortunate luxury of knowing what that place is as you are leaving it is a year of sepia moments smack dab in the middle of an otherwise technicolor life. You miss it before it's even gone.
My goal is to rest calmly in between rushing around feeling like I'm losing something and lazily ignoring that I need to soak all of this up. I am happy to leave before I am bored.
That I can not predict what comes next is invigorating and this feels right even as it gives my heart a small stress fracture. I will pack my bags, walk through the ghosts and bite my lip so I cry less. And move on to the next place I can fall desperately, senselessly in love with.
The song I am listening to right now just said, "Live through this and you won't look back." Three times.
I lie to myself daily. That never works for too long, does it? Eventually the front of your brain catches up to the back of it and you're screwed. Lie revealed and demanding to be dealt with. It's like telling your mom that you don't know who finished the cookies when you have melted chocolate chip evidence all over your 5 year old face. It's a joke. The truth is, I will miss the cold showers and the boardwalks. Even the thorns, and those are certainly not limited to thorns on vines. I left once, so I know this to be fact. You miss everything. That does not mean it's not what is supposed to happen, which I have found to be a very important distinction to make. Like those ghosts you sometimes think too fondly of, things change and disappear and it's almost always sad and almost always the right thing, anyway. Even if it feels differently at the time. Even if it feels differently forever.
And now I am here with chocolate chips all over my face and I am wondering what, exactly, protocol is here. I have been through my last Maho Christmas now. And the last Maho New Year's Eve. The last beginning of season. The last January swell. It will be a season full of lasts.
The thing is, Maho has been a pretty heavy place in my life. Most people have a place at least a little like this. Maybe your first car. Or those high school halls. Or that house in your college town, which was decorated with what you thought would surely be the best 4 (5? 6?) years of your entire life. This is where I fell in love the first time. It's where I felt what was it was like to have my heart break into a thousand cracked slivers. The only bone I have ever broken can be blamed on a loose rock at Big Maho beach. I learned to run here, and to lull. Televisions exited my life and I found out that I actually hate them. Because of this little place, I can tell you what a tamarind tree looks like, what time of year the mangoes are ripe and where most of the frangipanis are. And what a frangipani is, for that matter. Very simply put, I met myself here. I threw out some of the flaws and vices, gained a few new ones and pretty much figured out how to be someone I like at least most of the time. My life is less ordinary because of Maho. I am, as a direct result, happy. And in fewer than twelve months, I will be leaving.
Leaving places happens. I read somewhere that the average person will relocate eleven times over the span of his or her life. I'm at 12. This isn't something sad. It's not depressing. It's something I am proud of and I would not want my life to have gone down any other road. I have lived here longer than I have ever lived anywhere, which could give me some insight into this wanderlust thing if I ever bothered with it. 12 and counting. I can not wait to see where I will land next and I am happy to continue not knowing where that next place will be.
Still, there is always going to be that one place, isn't there? The one you think about when you're bored or daydreaming or looking for sepia nostalgia. And the unfortunate luxury of knowing what that place is as you are leaving it is a year of sepia moments smack dab in the middle of an otherwise technicolor life. You miss it before it's even gone.
My goal is to rest calmly in between rushing around feeling like I'm losing something and lazily ignoring that I need to soak all of this up. I am happy to leave before I am bored.
That I can not predict what comes next is invigorating and this feels right even as it gives my heart a small stress fracture. I will pack my bags, walk through the ghosts and bite my lip so I cry less. And move on to the next place I can fall desperately, senselessly in love with.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Reblogger.
I'm re-blogging this because I said it pretty well. And because I haven't had time to write a new one.
But it don't snow here. It stays pretty green. Gonna make a lotta money, then I'm gonna quit this crazy scene...
Oh, Joni. I heart you. So here we go, Christmas. Colored lights inside palm trees and if I close my eyes tightly enough, I can pretend that those are snow clouds outside. Tonight, I will go home and rock around my mini-tree. My counter is piled with presents from one home and presents from another. I have about 15 Christmas songs on my reggae-riddled iPod, which will play and play and play until the holiday ends unfairly and abruptly and we all go back to our white sand weekends like nothing ever happened. The reality that Christmas day is, in the end, a day, is weird no matter where you are. It almost seems like an island Christmas is a perfect way to acknowledge that. There is no Santa sitting in a mall, as there is no mall here. We put lights up in our tents, but then, we always put lights up in our tents. It would be hard to bake Christmas cookies on a Coleman stove, and pine trees are a little hard to come by. Unlike you statesiders, we are not bombed with the holidays as soon as Halloween passes. I would like to see the shops in Cruz Bay trying to pull off Christmas music in November, when the weather is just clearing up and the hibiscus printed tourists are pouring in. Nope. It just doesn't work.
Don't get me wrong; we try. It's just that forcing Christmas doesn't feel right. And forcing anything does not get you far in the islands, anyway. So, we watch Christmas movies at a friend's house and then climb back into our open-top jeeps and talk about how we're losing our tans and which beach we're going to tomorrow. If we are on the schedule, then we go to work. If we happen to have the day off, we do not treat it much like any other day off. A Friday is a Friday is a Friday. And then it's Saturday. And that's all there really is to it.
I've come to prefer Christmas this way, I think. Where it actually sneaks up on you. Where you do not even realize what day it is until it's here. And then you look around, quietly and without show, and thank the universe for the people around you and the life you live. Do I wish that I were somewhere else this time of year? Sometimes. But I have a family here whom I am infinitely happy to spend this time with. And besides, it's not that Christmas makes me miss people. It just reminds me that I already do.
On that note, Merry Christmas, all. Be happy, drink egg nog, sing Christmas songs and breathe in the cinnamon and cookie scented Christmas air. Breathe it in as deeply as it will go. Before you can even exhale, just like for me, it will be summer again. It is, at the end of it all, just a day.
I'm ending this with a Hunter S. Thompson quote, which has nothing to do with Christmas at all. But I love it.
"Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives...and to the "good life," whatever it is and wherever it happens to be."
But it don't snow here. It stays pretty green. Gonna make a lotta money, then I'm gonna quit this crazy scene...
Oh, Joni. I heart you. So here we go, Christmas. Colored lights inside palm trees and if I close my eyes tightly enough, I can pretend that those are snow clouds outside. Tonight, I will go home and rock around my mini-tree. My counter is piled with presents from one home and presents from another. I have about 15 Christmas songs on my reggae-riddled iPod, which will play and play and play until the holiday ends unfairly and abruptly and we all go back to our white sand weekends like nothing ever happened. The reality that Christmas day is, in the end, a day, is weird no matter where you are. It almost seems like an island Christmas is a perfect way to acknowledge that. There is no Santa sitting in a mall, as there is no mall here. We put lights up in our tents, but then, we always put lights up in our tents. It would be hard to bake Christmas cookies on a Coleman stove, and pine trees are a little hard to come by. Unlike you statesiders, we are not bombed with the holidays as soon as Halloween passes. I would like to see the shops in Cruz Bay trying to pull off Christmas music in November, when the weather is just clearing up and the hibiscus printed tourists are pouring in. Nope. It just doesn't work.
Don't get me wrong; we try. It's just that forcing Christmas doesn't feel right. And forcing anything does not get you far in the islands, anyway. So, we watch Christmas movies at a friend's house and then climb back into our open-top jeeps and talk about how we're losing our tans and which beach we're going to tomorrow. If we are on the schedule, then we go to work. If we happen to have the day off, we do not treat it much like any other day off. A Friday is a Friday is a Friday. And then it's Saturday. And that's all there really is to it.
I've come to prefer Christmas this way, I think. Where it actually sneaks up on you. Where you do not even realize what day it is until it's here. And then you look around, quietly and without show, and thank the universe for the people around you and the life you live. Do I wish that I were somewhere else this time of year? Sometimes. But I have a family here whom I am infinitely happy to spend this time with. And besides, it's not that Christmas makes me miss people. It just reminds me that I already do.
On that note, Merry Christmas, all. Be happy, drink egg nog, sing Christmas songs and breathe in the cinnamon and cookie scented Christmas air. Breathe it in as deeply as it will go. Before you can even exhale, just like for me, it will be summer again. It is, at the end of it all, just a day.
I'm ending this with a Hunter S. Thompson quote, which has nothing to do with Christmas at all. But I love it.
"Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives...and to the "good life," whatever it is and wherever it happens to be."
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Christmas: Part 1
Christmas gets me every time. I'm not sure if I always loved Christmas this much, or if it's a result of trying really, really hard to make it feel like it could maybe be snowing if I stepped outside at the end of a day in my office. Whatever the reason, everything about this time of year makes me smile. I love cheesy pop Christmas music with jingle bells in the background. I love legitimately good Christmas music with jingle bells in the background. ("Baby, It's Cold Outside" is my favorite. I'm not sure which category it falls into.(Ooh, that's a lie. I like "River" better.)) I love the movies and the cider and garland. I love cutting paper snowflakes and hanging them everywhere, even though it drives my roommate a little crazy. I love to listen to stories of how everyone here celebrates Christmas back home. People smile when they tell those stories, even though they can be hard to talk about when you're so far away from them.
On that note, I have to say something. I hope the people who get to be with their families and live those stories the same way year and year again understand what they have going for them. I am three thousand miles away from my perfect Christmas.
On December 24th, twenty of the people I love more than anyone else in this world will walk up my grandparents' walkway. The snow beneath their shoes will crunch and someone will probably slip and almost fall. The house will be warm and smell like a roasting turkey or a baking ham. There will be Christmas music playing and my grandfather will be whistling along in his apron as he toasts flour for the gravy. The tree will be ridiculously big and look like it leapt out of a Martha Stewart magazine page and into the living room. It will be decorated in gold. It will be beautiful. There will be a million presents underneath it. They're all supposed to be for the "kids," who are now into their late twenties, but there will also be some for the adults. Each of the adults will grin at each other and say, "Oh, we weren't doing Christmas presents for each other this year!"
The mingling will happen while everyone is cooking and snacking and snacking and cooking. We have to mingle, you see, as there will inevitably be someone there whom only one of us knows. Maybe a new girlfriend or boyfriend, unaware that all past girlfriends and boyfriends are still invited to our family Christmases. Or maybe a Christmas orphan, who doesn't have anywhere else to go, or who might not even celebrate the holiday. This orphan could be my grandmother's acupuncturist or the Vietnamese family who cleans her house. This orphan could speak zero English and have no real desire to be at her house for Christmas Eve. My grandmother does not care. My grandmother is Daddy Warbucks and will be damned if there is a soul in the whole state of Colorado who doesn't have somewhere to go that night.
The mingling will be interrupted by photo-taking time. They will pour onto the front step and try to figure out how to stand so everyone is seen. Someone will have brought santa hats or headbands with reindeer horns and bells, and that someone will insist that they all wear the hats for the picture. This includes the acupuncturist or new girlfriend. No one escapes unadorned. For this reason, we have a multitude of Christmas pictures with one or two people whose names no one can remember. My grandmother will cackle and my dad will roll his eyes.
When the pictures are done, they will eat. Gram will force kids to sit next to adults so everyone talks to everyone. She does not want people in their comfort zones, no sir. Sit beside someone you don't already talk to all the time. I suspect that this is done because she wants to be at the kids table herself. We make her laugh and we don't talk about things that bore her. We have let her believe that she is sneaky for years now, just like we pretend not to know that she puts pimentos in her jello-salad just so no one else will eat it and she can have all the leftovers.
After the food is gone and those twenty loved people pat their tummies and fill their cheeks with air to signal total stuffedness, they will move to the living room, where they will laugh together. They will laugh about my Uncle Patrick's constant quest for the perfect candid photo, which he will surely have been trying to get all day. The will ask about old girlfriends and boyfriends and unwittingly make the new ones slightly uncomfortable. Right about this time, my dad and his dad will disappear into different corners with different newspapers, where they will remain for most of the rest of the night. The kids will get up and do the dishes, complaining that they're not kids anymore and that dish duty should be shared by everyone now, forgetting that they cooked nothing.
My grandfather will start the coffee, and the scent will fill the air. A moment does not exist on December 24th that their house doesn't smell like something delicious.
And then, they will sing. My grandmother will sit down at one of her two pianos and begin to play Christmas songs. She will hand out sheet music. My cousin, who is my best friend, will look around the room searching for me until she remembers that I'm not there. That I haven't been there all that much since 2004. When she remembers, she will be sad. So will I. Some of them, including my spectacular grandmother, will sing beautifully. The ones that will not sing beautifully do not care. It's Christmas, and everyone can sing at Christmas. My Uncle Ted will say that we're flat. My mother will laugh and say something about not being able to carry a tune. My cousin will sing like a pop star and my grandmother will tell her to Stop That, that's not Real Singing. My dad and his dad will remain in their corners, with smiles sneaking into the corners of their lips. People will start to break away from the carolers a bit and dive into apple pie and chocolate torte, grateful that my grandfather made the coffee. He makes better coffee than any of the rest of us.
Rather abruptly, my grandmother will get tired of singing and demand the we all go to the tree and open presents. Present time is a little bittersweet. It's exciting and full of oohs and ahhs, but it's also the end. The last part. After the oohs and ahhs come the goodbyes, and then they will have to wait another year before this all happens again. No one wants to wait another year. No one really wants the night to end at all.
As I'm writing this, I am not sure how to close it. It seems, even when just writing the story of my family's Christmas Eve, that I do not want it to end anymore than they will.
Let's just call this part one. I'll end it with not wanting it to end. And tomorrow, when I am less sad about not being at one home for Christmas, I will write about being at a different one.
Until then, I thank David Bowie and Bing Crosby for singing a Christmas song together.
On that note, I have to say something. I hope the people who get to be with their families and live those stories the same way year and year again understand what they have going for them. I am three thousand miles away from my perfect Christmas.
On December 24th, twenty of the people I love more than anyone else in this world will walk up my grandparents' walkway. The snow beneath their shoes will crunch and someone will probably slip and almost fall. The house will be warm and smell like a roasting turkey or a baking ham. There will be Christmas music playing and my grandfather will be whistling along in his apron as he toasts flour for the gravy. The tree will be ridiculously big and look like it leapt out of a Martha Stewart magazine page and into the living room. It will be decorated in gold. It will be beautiful. There will be a million presents underneath it. They're all supposed to be for the "kids," who are now into their late twenties, but there will also be some for the adults. Each of the adults will grin at each other and say, "Oh, we weren't doing Christmas presents for each other this year!"
The mingling will happen while everyone is cooking and snacking and snacking and cooking. We have to mingle, you see, as there will inevitably be someone there whom only one of us knows. Maybe a new girlfriend or boyfriend, unaware that all past girlfriends and boyfriends are still invited to our family Christmases. Or maybe a Christmas orphan, who doesn't have anywhere else to go, or who might not even celebrate the holiday. This orphan could be my grandmother's acupuncturist or the Vietnamese family who cleans her house. This orphan could speak zero English and have no real desire to be at her house for Christmas Eve. My grandmother does not care. My grandmother is Daddy Warbucks and will be damned if there is a soul in the whole state of Colorado who doesn't have somewhere to go that night.
The mingling will be interrupted by photo-taking time. They will pour onto the front step and try to figure out how to stand so everyone is seen. Someone will have brought santa hats or headbands with reindeer horns and bells, and that someone will insist that they all wear the hats for the picture. This includes the acupuncturist or new girlfriend. No one escapes unadorned. For this reason, we have a multitude of Christmas pictures with one or two people whose names no one can remember. My grandmother will cackle and my dad will roll his eyes.
When the pictures are done, they will eat. Gram will force kids to sit next to adults so everyone talks to everyone. She does not want people in their comfort zones, no sir. Sit beside someone you don't already talk to all the time. I suspect that this is done because she wants to be at the kids table herself. We make her laugh and we don't talk about things that bore her. We have let her believe that she is sneaky for years now, just like we pretend not to know that she puts pimentos in her jello-salad just so no one else will eat it and she can have all the leftovers.
After the food is gone and those twenty loved people pat their tummies and fill their cheeks with air to signal total stuffedness, they will move to the living room, where they will laugh together. They will laugh about my Uncle Patrick's constant quest for the perfect candid photo, which he will surely have been trying to get all day. The will ask about old girlfriends and boyfriends and unwittingly make the new ones slightly uncomfortable. Right about this time, my dad and his dad will disappear into different corners with different newspapers, where they will remain for most of the rest of the night. The kids will get up and do the dishes, complaining that they're not kids anymore and that dish duty should be shared by everyone now, forgetting that they cooked nothing.
My grandfather will start the coffee, and the scent will fill the air. A moment does not exist on December 24th that their house doesn't smell like something delicious.
And then, they will sing. My grandmother will sit down at one of her two pianos and begin to play Christmas songs. She will hand out sheet music. My cousin, who is my best friend, will look around the room searching for me until she remembers that I'm not there. That I haven't been there all that much since 2004. When she remembers, she will be sad. So will I. Some of them, including my spectacular grandmother, will sing beautifully. The ones that will not sing beautifully do not care. It's Christmas, and everyone can sing at Christmas. My Uncle Ted will say that we're flat. My mother will laugh and say something about not being able to carry a tune. My cousin will sing like a pop star and my grandmother will tell her to Stop That, that's not Real Singing. My dad and his dad will remain in their corners, with smiles sneaking into the corners of their lips. People will start to break away from the carolers a bit and dive into apple pie and chocolate torte, grateful that my grandfather made the coffee. He makes better coffee than any of the rest of us.
Rather abruptly, my grandmother will get tired of singing and demand the we all go to the tree and open presents. Present time is a little bittersweet. It's exciting and full of oohs and ahhs, but it's also the end. The last part. After the oohs and ahhs come the goodbyes, and then they will have to wait another year before this all happens again. No one wants to wait another year. No one really wants the night to end at all.
As I'm writing this, I am not sure how to close it. It seems, even when just writing the story of my family's Christmas Eve, that I do not want it to end anymore than they will.
Let's just call this part one. I'll end it with not wanting it to end. And tomorrow, when I am less sad about not being at one home for Christmas, I will write about being at a different one.
Until then, I thank David Bowie and Bing Crosby for singing a Christmas song together.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Cursed?
The other day, I was reading through various Facebook things (I so hate how that site has the ability to catch my attention) and I found an interesting post. My sister wrote some status update about how her boyfriend is in Europe, her best friend is in New Zealand, and her sister (that's me) will soon cross the Atlantic again. She wondered, with all of these traveling people around her, why she is still here. I don't know how much she meant by it. I don't know if she meant that she wanted a vacation or that she wants to travel in general or that she feels like she's gotten stuck here. I don't know. I won't ask. But the post was there and I was sort of flattered to be included in her thoughts about traveling/travelers.
Comments flowed, as they always do. Some encouraging her to see the world. Others telling her that she'll find her time to do all these things as well. Uplifting, mostly, and all on her side. And then I saw something weird. I saw my name in one of them. I read further and found a comment made largely about me. A friend of ours told her that she wasn't traveling because she had good sense to save money and be stable in an unstable job market. Because she didn't feel the need to "keep up with the Joneses" the way I, apparently, do. He then said, "No offense, Jamie, I just don't think you'll ever be happy staying in one place."
Whoa.
My first response was defense. I was stung and wrote some prickly retort about not being satisfied with watching the whole wide world exist inside a television screen. I have had to defend this to people before. Career-driven people, mostly. I find that people either envy what I do or look down on it, believing it to be a juvenile escape from the reality of those picket fences and digital bathroom scales that I so abhor. I'm used to this assumption and have calculated decent defenses for every version of it.
But this was new. "You'll never be happy anywhere?" Is that true? I wonder. I haven't found anywhere I want to stay forever, and I've lived in three of the most beautiful places the US has to offer. Three places people often migrate to, not out of. Three places people go on vacation and ooh and aah about how they wish they could live there. I've left two without so much as a tear and plan to leave this one before a year is up. I have decided to move to the Pacific Northwest, but the plan is not to stay. The plan has never been to stay.
So what's wrong with that? Is there anything wrong with it at all? When he said "No offense," he clearly thought that offense could be taken. He clearly even meant it that way. Have I doomed myself to a life of dissatisfaction? Of always wondering if there is somewhere better? I am wondering even now if there is somewhere better than where I'm sitting, and I am happy where I'm sitting. Where I'm sitting is beautiful and perfect. Yet I am sure that there is somewhere more beautiful and more perfect. Yeah, that's a better was to put it. I'm not always wondering if there is some place better; I am always sure that there is.
I'm not sure if this scares me or excites me. I suppose those two things feel very much the same and even are the same in a lot of circumstances.
Should I be looking for a cure or thanking the universe?
Comments flowed, as they always do. Some encouraging her to see the world. Others telling her that she'll find her time to do all these things as well. Uplifting, mostly, and all on her side. And then I saw something weird. I saw my name in one of them. I read further and found a comment made largely about me. A friend of ours told her that she wasn't traveling because she had good sense to save money and be stable in an unstable job market. Because she didn't feel the need to "keep up with the Joneses" the way I, apparently, do. He then said, "No offense, Jamie, I just don't think you'll ever be happy staying in one place."
Whoa.
My first response was defense. I was stung and wrote some prickly retort about not being satisfied with watching the whole wide world exist inside a television screen. I have had to defend this to people before. Career-driven people, mostly. I find that people either envy what I do or look down on it, believing it to be a juvenile escape from the reality of those picket fences and digital bathroom scales that I so abhor. I'm used to this assumption and have calculated decent defenses for every version of it.
But this was new. "You'll never be happy anywhere?" Is that true? I wonder. I haven't found anywhere I want to stay forever, and I've lived in three of the most beautiful places the US has to offer. Three places people often migrate to, not out of. Three places people go on vacation and ooh and aah about how they wish they could live there. I've left two without so much as a tear and plan to leave this one before a year is up. I have decided to move to the Pacific Northwest, but the plan is not to stay. The plan has never been to stay.
So what's wrong with that? Is there anything wrong with it at all? When he said "No offense," he clearly thought that offense could be taken. He clearly even meant it that way. Have I doomed myself to a life of dissatisfaction? Of always wondering if there is somewhere better? I am wondering even now if there is somewhere better than where I'm sitting, and I am happy where I'm sitting. Where I'm sitting is beautiful and perfect. Yet I am sure that there is somewhere more beautiful and more perfect. Yeah, that's a better was to put it. I'm not always wondering if there is some place better; I am always sure that there is.
I'm not sure if this scares me or excites me. I suppose those two things feel very much the same and even are the same in a lot of circumstances.
Should I be looking for a cure or thanking the universe?
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